"Bottle-fed zebra babies for sale!" If you see this ad, run for the hills! Why?
Isn't a bottle-fed zebra baby more 'bonded' to humans? The answer is an emphatic 'yes'!.
Isn't the bottle-fed zebra baby much less fearful of humans than the average baby zebra?
The answer is again an emphatic 'yes'! Then won't the baby zebra train better and be safer
to work around and the possibility of it being able to pull a cart or even ride much
greater? The answer is a resounding 'absolutely not'!

Let's take a look at what goes through the baby zebra's mind when you replace its
real mama by allowing it to suck from a bottle held by you, or even slurp from a bucket
held by you over and over again during the first 12 weeks of its life. You ARE its mama!
It is that simple.

So, what is wrong with that? EVERYTHING! A baby equine, whether a horse, donkey, mule,
zorse, zonkey or zebra NEVER respects its mother. Often within hours, usually
within days, and always within weeks, the baby equine is biting, kicking, standing
on the shoulders of, running into, and otherwise abusing their mothers mercilessly.
The mares rarely, if ever, discipline their youngsters. A mother discouraging this
behavior would be inhibiting her offspring's desire and ability to become a dominant
member of the herd later. The baby is programed to disrespect its mother; the colts
to a greater extent than the fillies.

Within just a few short days the baby is following its mother less and less, and
the mother is hard pressed to keep her baby from getting into trouble. In fact, we
have performed an experiment …over and over again for decades with hundreds mother/baby
pairs,
including donkeys/donkey babies, horse mare/mule babies, horse mare/zorse babies,
horse mare/horse babies, donkey jennet/zonkey babies, and zebra mares/zebra babies.
We take the individual mother and baby out for a walk with the dam on a lead and
leave the babies to follow. A day old baby will stick right to its mother's side
most often, but within just a few days of daily walks the baby will venture farther
and farther from its mother, and the mother will call to the baby to come back to her
side. Within a couple of weeks the mother's call becomes more insistent as the baby
travels even farther and investigates other equines, dogs, plants, equipment, etc.
Pretty soon the baby is running around visiting other equines and preferring not to
come to mother's call at all, and needs to be chased down and brought back to mother's
side by the humans.

However, when you turn the experiment around, with the same mother and baby, and let
the mare loose, while leading the baby, the mother sticks right to her baby's side,
never wandering off to do her own thing like her baby did, but attentively following
her baby anywhere you lead it. We never fear that a loose mare mare will leave her baby,
unless she one of those rare mares that has rejected her baby.
You see this if you watch carefully even in the pasture. The mother's are actually
following their babies as they cavort around, trying to make sure their babies are safe.
When their babies lie down at whatever place they choose, the mother will stand over the
foal while they sleep.

So, it is not the babies that respect and follow their mothers, it is the mothers
that dote on their babies, allowing the babies to pretty much do whatever they want.
So, if you put yourself in the position of 'mama' by 'nursing' the baby zebra, yes,
this baby will initially 'bond' with you because you are its source of food and
protection, and it will recognize you out of every other human, but respect,
translated into a 'healthy fear' of you will be nonexistent. As the baby matures,
it has less and less respect for its mother, and finally, when the ties are broken
due to maturity, the youngster will even vie for absolute dominance over you. At that
point, all humans will become part of the animal's 'herd' and the equine will try to
gain dominance over every human, not just the one that fed it as a baby.

At the ranch we get at least one call or email a month asking for help with a
bottle-fed (hand fed) zebra gone bad. It is never a matter of 'if' they will become
aggressive and dangerous, only a matter of 'when'. The 'when' will occur as the
animal matures, and the time that this will happen varies from one animal to another
due to temperament type (submissive, intermediate, dominant), gender,
(stallion, mare, gelding) and, to the smallest percentage, the learned
behaviors of the animal from your interaction with it on a daily basis.
Because this 'bonded to humans' personality was formed almost from birth,
it is extremely difficult and more importantly, extremely dangerous to try
to alter any of these behaviors with training. This is what the animal now 'is'.
I will not take anyone's money to work with a bottle-fed adult animal anymore. It
is not worth my life and/or limb for me to work with them and try to change what was
created and ingrained in them from infancy. Zebras are many times stronger than horses,
with two sets of canine teeth that are razor sharp, and they know how to use them. Bottle
fed animals WILL use them, you can be sure.

What will they do to you? They will bite, kick, strike, push you down,
drop on their knees on you, and effectively try to do as much damage to you
as they can, the same as they would to another zebra they are trying to dominate
in a fight. Even a zebra to zebra fight often results in a bloody battle, lasting
for hours on end, and often a dominant zebra will pick on a more submissive zebra
daily, weekly, monthly, grabbing the neck with a pit-bull-like grip and tearing away
at the skin and flesh. This is exactly what a bottle fed zebra will do to you every
opportunity it gets once it is mature. A bottle fed stallion is the worst. Especially
when you give him his own mares he will turn on you and severely injure you. I have
been in the hospital twice after being attacked by a bottle-fed stallion we thought
we could simply 'manage' here because we are fully set up for zebras, and we agreed
to rescue its terrified owners from it. He tore his mares up, and tore me up, insisting
that I become one of his 'mares'. He insisted on attacking men who were a threat to his
herd. He didn't know whether he was a zebra or a human - and he acted like a demonic
combination, one minute appearing friendly and wanting petted, and the next minute
grabbing the person so fast one couldn't even think fast enough to move. This is the
story we get all the time on these bottle fed animals. BUYER BEWARE of bottle fed zebras.
Of course, horses are the exact same when they bottle fed...luckily it usually only
happens with horses when a mare dies or rejects its baby, as horse foals are all kept on
their horse moms unless one of these circumstances occurs.

We have two mares here at the ranch that we keep to share with folks who come to our
training clinics - a zonkey mare and a zebra mare that were both bottle-fed at different
homes. Their behavior is identical with only slightly less of a 'killer instinct'
than the stallion's, but they will try to bite and kick at almost every opportunity,
even creating opportunities for themselves to do so. They will back up straight
towards a person preparing to kick with both hind legs wanting to send you into
oblivion. BUYER BEWARE of bottle fed zebras.

The stories that come to us of varying degrees of injury, from hundreds of sutures
to broken bones, to many soft tissue injuries, back injuries, whiplash, and more, are
a living testament to the dangers of bottle feeding or bucket feeding (while holding
the bucket). BUYER BEWARE of bottle fed zebras.

Now, just so that you are not totally put off on zebras as a potentially trained
animal, with all these warnings about bottle feeding, be it known that horses and
donkeys and all other equines will do the same thing if bottle fed, sometimes to a
slightly less dangerous degree, since zebras are stronger and with more instinctive
'fight' in them, but with bottle fed horse stallions being extremely dangerous,
biting, kicking, striking, chasing you down, and even killing people, as has been
known throughout the history of the domestic horse. When I was a little girl, just 3
years old, my aunt was temporarily housing a three year old sorrel Morgan stallion that
had killed
one man and put two others in the hospital, that was waiting to have its fate sealed.
It had been orphaned and bottle fed, and then, as a three year old, had a clear picture
of what it had to do when another 'human' stallion tried to train it (subdue it, or
be dominant over it).
By being bottle fed
it was 'programed' to fight with other human males, the same as the zebra stallion was
'programed' to want human women as part of its harem, and to 'fight' human males. Yes,
equines, as well as almost all other animals can tell the difference between male
and female. It is a simple matter of phermones, which are easily recognized even
between different species. As well, animals recognize babies of different species, either
from the lack of phermone scents, or from the 'baby smell' that is common among
many species, which is in the breath of the animal.

The question now is: If bottle feeding is not the way to get a zebra to learn to
interact well with the humans, get over their fears, and not be aggressive when
they mature, what is the 'right' way of accomplishing this? At our ranch we bucket
feed our babies that we separate from their wild zebra
mothers that don't allow us to train the babies in the stall with them. Our trained
mares we allow to raise their babies and we work with the babies every day. We make
sure the baby is drinking well, which is accomplished just after one or two feedings
with the bucket pushed up to the muzzle, then the bucket is placed in the stall and
when the formula is placed in the bucket, we leave the stall altogether, so that
the baby does not relate us to the food. We almost always give the baby a miniature
mare or donkey to bond with for three months or so. This animal will teach the baby
not to have the typical 'get away at all costs' fear of humans, and teach them that
we are their friend and trainer, but NEVER their mother.

During the course of the first three months of this baby's life - you must now
spend hundreds of hours training this baby to be more 'horse-like' in its trained behaviors, and
this is not accomplished with typical 'horse-training' techniques. It is only accomplished with
'zebra training' techniques adapted from the way the zebras train one another. We
can establish a more definitive explanation of the zebra's mind, perhaps, by saying
that zebras are 25% horse, 25% donkey, and 50% zebra in their behaviors. So, the very best
horse trainer only has 25% of the knowledge he/she needs to train a zebra. If that
person can also successfully train mules and donkeys, then he/she has 50% of the knowledge
that is needed to train a zebra, and 50% of the knowledge will not get the zebra trained.
That is why many great horse trainers have been heard
saying "Zebras cannot be trained". They have felt that if, with all their equine knowledge,
that 'they' cannot train a zebra, then the animal is untrainable. Not so, if you are
training a zebra using zebra communication, they are very trainable. But it is a
combination of efforts needed to have the final successful result, including when you have
to start
training, how much time it takes, and of course, how you train.

This is just one of the many aspects of zebra training that our clients learn
about when they attend one of our 3-day zebra training clinics, which information
can be found on our website. This, and our many other insights into zebra training,
is what make our zebras very special animals for our clients. They are trained, and
continue to be trainable. Almost from the minute they are born, they are properly
socialized and trained. Zebra communication, behaviors; the differences between
zebras and horses that make typical horse training almost impossible with zebras,
and how you can become a zebra trainer extraordinaire are more of the exciting
aspects of our 3 day zebra training program. We provide the zebras for the training
clinic. This training is based on the natural communication and behaviors of zebras,
and is also 100% successful with mustangs, domestic horses, zonkeys, zorses, mules,
and donkeys as well. Problem horses respond amazingly to this training. We take you
into the mind of the equine so that you can essentially become one to train one. The
zebras have nuances in their thinking, instincts and behavior that go beyond the horses'.

So, what about zebras that are not bottle fed? Are they tractable, trainable?
The answer to that is 'yes', with some exceptions. About one in six baby zebras
may not train up to the degree that the other five will, a ratio somewhat lower
than most domestic breeds
of horses. But, like anything else, zebras can only be trained IF you know what you
are doing, and even great horse trainers just cannot apply typical horse training
techniques and expect to train a zebra. But zebras can be trained to drive and ride,
and be wonderful equine companions, are much more loyal to you than almost any horse,
and totally endearing with personality to spare as long as you learn how to understand,
communicate with and subsequently train them. Obtaining a zebra with the proper start
as we do here at Spots 'N Stripes Ranch is imperative to any future as a trained animal,
with only the rarest of exceptions.

At the Spots 'N Stripes Ranch, we train all our zebra babies from their first day,
and by the time our babies are 90 days old they have at least 300 hours of training,
that's over 3 hours per day, and are better trained than almost any yearling horse foal
by that time, knowing the verbal cues for 'whoa', 'back', 'away', 'come to', lead over
obstacles, halter, tie, load, trailer, clip, body shave, pick up their feet, trim, and
compete at horse shows in halter and color classes, are well socialized with people, dogs,
cats, horses, mini horses, donkeys, etc. They have been introduced
to saddles, harness, and cows. At three we begin to sit on them just a little,
and at four they may be ridden and driven lightly. At five they are fully mature and can
take a full training regimen. If it sounds like we go to a lot of effort with our zebras,
you are right, and we are proud of how seriously we take our guardianship of these
magnificent animals. Our 90 day old babies already have over $5000 of professional zebra
training (not
horse training)
and with 25 - 30 years ahead of them in a relationship with this
animal - what makes more sense to a potential owner - a trained zebra or an untrained
or poorly trained animal that will never be able to be trained to a safe potential
or to the abilities that one started correctly will do. Both cost the same to feed, vet,
and house, but one is much
safer, both for itself and for its owners, and much more interactive in a positive way.
We encourage all
breeders to rethink their breeding AND training programs and step up to the plate.
A trained zebra is one of the rarest animals on earth - no one should expect them
to be 'cheap', with all the time and effort and expertise it takes to get them to that
point. It should be about quality - not quantity.

Zebras mature later than horses, so make sure your zebra's knees are closed
prior to beginning a stressful riding or driving program.

If you would like information on our trained zebras or our
zebra training program, please email or call us. Delivery of our zebras can be arranged anywhere!
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